Thanks mostly to the information and motivation stemming from this forum, I have purchased a rental house in Central Florida and am under contract for two additional homes. I will look to be adding more homes in Florida but my question today is regarding Las Vegas.
Can anyone recommend any good real estate brokers in Las Vegas that deal with out of town investors and does anyone have any good recommendations for property managers. I've had good experiences so far with my current PM in FL and I would love to be able to replicate that experience in another market. I know that Las Vegas is a tough market right now w/r/t supply, but I think it may not be too late to get some homes in that market for a buy and hold investor. I have to think that banks will figure out a way to accelerate foreclosures again so hopefully supply will be coming back to that market. I am a cash investor and am looking for long term rental properties (SFRs, not condos).
As you mentioned in your post, inventory is getting very tight. As a result, it's quite competitive in our market right now. That said, it's still possible to acquire property. You'll just have to cast the line several times to catch a bite. You'll likely have to play with short sales as well. Decide on a price range, pick a neighborhood(s), and start doing some research. Feel free to contact me if you have questions. Good luck!
HOA is solvant and cost $160 a month. At $800 a month rent, deduct $200 for HOA & taxes (we self manage). Deduct another $100 for unknowns. That's $500 month net or $6k a yr. Divide that by $42k investment (includes closing costs), and it yields 14% return WITHOUT any appreciation. Las Vegas prices are on the rise, so we are anticipating appreciation to sweeten the deal. Also, we got lucky... kitchen was already remodeled with granite!
HOA is solvant and cost $160 a month. At $800 a month rent, deduct $200 for HOA & taxes (we self manage). Deduct another $100 for unknowns. That's $500 month net or $6k a yr. Divide that by $42k investment (includes closing costs), and it yields 14% return WITHOUT any appreciation. Las Vegas prices are on the rise, so we are anticipating appreciation to sweeten the deal. Also, we got lucky... kitchen was already remodeled with granite!
Maybe you could provide us with just the zipcode? So far the cheapest properties I'm seeing in condo/townhouse are low 60K for a 2 bedroom. If it's in Summerlin/GV near good school, you might have found a very good purchase.
OMG... I wish it was in Summerlin! But no, not for that price. The two detached homes we bought are in Summerlin. The townhome is more central, pretty close to the Convention Center and Country Club. Overall, a pretty decent area, not near North Las Vegas. And the complex is well maintained, LOTS of BIG green greenbelts, and even has 2 Tennis courts. It's about 5 minutes east of the strip and about 10 minutes to the airport. I don't recall the zip, but I feel pretty good about this one. Most other units I looked at in the 40-45k range were not near as desirable. And the 2 car garage is a GREAT rental and selling factor (very hard to find at this price point).
Donna, I'm interested in some of those townhouses. Please contact me if you are willing to share the location. I'm just a 3.5 hour drive from Las Vegas.
Some of the HOAs have rental restrictions, and the high rise condos have restrictions and high fees, so we did not know about the townhouses you are buying.
I've seen some homes that sold at the highs of the market at $900K+ going for half. If I had the money, I'd be buying up all these fire sale homes.
Would you also be buying up Internet stocks which are way off the peak of 2000? The peak seems useful for one thing - assessing the relative quality of different areas. We bought one in las vegas for $90,000 (plus $5 paint & carpet, and minor repairs) which was $289,000 at the peak. We like that neighborhood far better than one were they were $195,000 at the peak and are now $100,000.
Disclaimer: I never post in BP just because I really don't have anything important to say and most of my questions are answered by articles and forums.
Though I am a new RE investor, I have been living in Las Vegas for 7 years. I know a person who have been investing for 25 years and he told me that "the bus already left", I didn't listen because I think he was just afraid of competition. Now I realize the bus did left but it doesn't mean there are no more deals to be made.
There are still deals here in Vegas, you just need to work hard in finding them. It's no longer like how it was 3 or 4 years ago.
Wholesale prices are hard to come by and when it does, it turns into a bidding war, even motivated(?) sellers are now aware that the market is HOT so they shop around more.
I switched my interest from SFR to Condos because I figured that with half the price of SFR I could still get $600-$800 rent, bringing in a $200 cash flow. I was mistaken... due to supply of investor owned SFR, renters are more inclined to add $100-$200 more in their rent to live in a SFR. Even Single Family homes are having a hard time finding renters. A friend of mine who has been a renter for 5 years is now buying their own property because it's cheaper to buy than to rent.
I tried buying shortsale and foreclosure, made a lot of offers but I have no luck. My agent keeps telling me that my offer didn't get accepted, I'm not even sure if he's even giving them since they are so low it's shameful.
Regarding Summerlin, it's one of the best communities to live in. If you're going to buy a house for residence or if you're expecting a good return from appreciation, it's a good area. But if you're looking for cash flow, the HOA and fees will kill you.
Websites will state that Las Vegas have a negative appreciation rate, but it doesn't feel that way. Trulia, Zillow and other listing sites often have comparables, but it doesn't seem to affect listing prices.
Overall, my assumption of Las Vegas market is that there's a lot of cheap houses compared to other states, but the prices are now starting to increase. We used to go to auction houses and purchase condos for $30k-$40k, now the same type of condos go for $40 to 60k.
It's like, nobody learned something from the crash.
The crazy law in Nevada trying to buy votes by stopping foreclosures is a major part of the problem. Who know how long the banks can hold out? For example, I know of a house I'd love to buy, but it has been sitting empty since last Fall, not yet foreclosed, but vacated by the borrowers who gave up on a short sale. Threatening to put the bank employees in jail just because of minor paperwork glitches, overlooking the major and main fact that the borrowers had defaulted, has indeed all but stopped foreclosures.
By the way, our property in Las Vegas tells us he would love to have more houses to rent, as the demand is there.
@Stephen Masek
Alot of the newer condos require own occ and dues are too high to cash flow. You need to look at some of the older townhomes (built 70s to mid 90s). Those don't usually have occupancy restrictions and the HOA dues are lower. The townhome we are buying is in a small complex (o0nly 58 units) and built late 70s. Unfortunately there aren't anymore available and they don't come up often. I'll be keeping my eyes out in case another comes up, since it cash flows nicely. We will be self managing and my brother will assist if needed, since he lives there. I have never found it to be too cumbersome to manage a few units on our own. Besides, this is now our only business (semi-retired), so we have the time to do this and we go to Vegas quite often.
@Andy Chu
You need to look at the big picture in Summerlin. It's a HIGHLY desirable communiuty! People want their kids in Summerlin schools. True, it's tough to find a house under FMV right now because owner occ buyers are seeing great value in these homes now, while having a GREAT place to live, so lots of multiple offers. It takes alot of patience to find one under market. We look for ones that need work and make cash offers. If you budget the rehab properly, there's still room for an OK profit to flip. But certainly not what it use to be. I don't see the rental market in Summerlin as a good enuf return to buy and hold. Rents are too low to justify the monthly fees. And it's certainly not easy to find a good enough deal to flip, but there are still some to be had.... takes alot of work and alot of patience.
Will, you need to host the image on a site like http://photobucket.com/
Once you upload your picture, you will get the direct URL to that image. ie http://photobucket.com/will/image.jpg
Then when you get on BP to do a advanced reply, you click on the IMG button, it will give you a [img] tag, then paste your image URL, then click on the IMG button again to close the image tag [/img]
Ok, I am by no means a techie, but photo bucket appears to suck. I formed account, formed an album, yet there is nowhere to allow to upload photos into the album.
I give up for now.
I have to head down to the pool, all this work is making me hot.
Dammit Will! I was hanging around to see that pic. I'm ready for a good laugh, and I'm sure it's a good pic. Don't give up. I wanna see it, LOL. I'm heading to the pool in a few minutes too. I'll look again later :) GOOD LUCK POSTING THE PIC!
Peter, nice job on the photo upload. Can you give Will & me a lesson?? lol
@Peter
That's a good picture. Looks like someone know how to take pictures.
@Will
When you log into Photobucket, you should see the green upload button at the very top. Says Upload and that should take you to your upload page where you can point to your photos for uploading.
I use Photobucket frequently, mostly for the radios I collect and restore (account FStephenMasek). Uploading is easy, and the batch upload can be handy.To put photos in forum posts (here and on most forums of any sort), just copy and paste the IMG links.
I bought a ~ 1,400 sft. condo in Vegas back in the summer of '09. It was an REO that I paid $100K for. The previous buyer paid ~$297K for it in 2006. I didn't know if I was catching the absolute bottom of the market back in '09 but I was reasonably sure it was close enough to the bottom that my purchase wouldn't end up being catastrophic.
About 7-8 months ago I was seriously thinking of selling the place. I called the RE agent I had used during the purchase and asked her to send me the recent comps for the condo complex I had bought in. I was disappointed a bit because the comps were in the $80k-$85K range for my unit. I had just started a new job at the time so I put the condo sale on the back burner while I focused on work.
Fast forward to this summer. Being settled in the new job, I called my agent again and told her I wanted to get the place listed. Long story short - it caught multiple offers and ended up selling at $105K. After 3 years as a rental the place also needed at minimum, new carpet and paint. I was stunned how much the Vegas RE market had turned in such a relatively brief period of time.
As an aside - my agent told me that the buyer was a Vegas local that had bought ~20 properties in the last 30 days.
you have prices for real estate like we do here in belarus..many houses in the capital of Belarus are selling with price above 300k-400k!! But wages in our country many times lower than in USA..strange and sad
RE prices in our country are relatively low compared to many other countries. Alot of folks here in the US don't realize that. These prices have attracted alot of foreign investors the past few years.